Since this is something that we run into again and again in the field, and it is also becoming very prevalent these days with the sudden attention to paranormal topics, I have to address this. I feel that not enough information is provided on the down sides of mediumship, and people need this information to understand what is happening at times with themselves, and their loved ones who are gifted with this ability. First I want to talk about what "hysterical mediumship" is and then we will look at how it comes about and who is prone to it. So first..."What is hysterical mediumship?"

As many people already know a medium is someone who supposedly can see, hear and communicate with spirits. There are people who have this faculty, and people who do not have it. A person can have this ability naturally from birth, and maintain it into adulthood, or it can come about after a "Near death experience" , after a head injury, or even paranormal trauma that results from a long term experience exposure to a spirit haunting. Mediumship is also common in people with some brain abnormalities, such as Autism, Epilepsy, or another condition which causes the wiring of the brain to be different from the norm. No matter what the case any medium can be susceptible to hysterical mediumship. Some mediums are grounded and have total control over that faculty, where as they can shut it down and not be in an open state all the time. This is the ideal state for a medium, but not all mediums have this control. A hysterical medium believes that any or all of his or her impressions or perceptions are real and genuine psychic visions.

Sometimes a medium once discovering this ability will suffer from hysterical mediumship, because they are very taken with the idea that they have this ability, or because, they are at first ,very afraid of it. So what happens is that the person starts seeing and experiencing things everywhere, everyday, all the time and thinks that all of these are true psychic experiences. Even grounded mediums are subject to the fancy of their imagination and their dreams etc. but they are a bit better at practicing the discernment, to know the difference between what their mind makes up and what is true psychic impression. There is no medium, no matter how controlled that can always be correct in this discernment at all times. For every real ghost or spirit that a hysterical medium sees or thinks they see, they will see and experience 25 vivid creations of their own mind, if they are disposed to this condition. Hysterical mediums also tend to see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear or see and hear what they fear the most, depending on the individual's whims and fears.

Now who is most prone to hysterical mediumship? Usually those who come into the gift later in life or as a result of trauma, NDE, etc. are more prone to this condition. Young people are especially susceptible to it as they are often enamored with the ability and all that it entails and so they tend to expect to experience things everywhere all the time, and consequently they do whether through true vision or imagination . Children, that are told by adults that they are special and can see ghosts etc. are very prone to fancy and false visions which may even scare them very badly.

Another factor that figures into the equation with some folks who become hysterical mediums is fear instilled by religious beliefs and or over zealous religious desires to experience that which is perceived as divine or magical. A hysterical medium who thinks that what they see is evil and is afraid will be more prone to have more and more negative and probably invalid experiences born of his or her fear. An over zealous religious type will have more and more experiences that they perceive to be validation of their faith. Both of these extremes results in a non-healthy perception of reality for the hysterical medium, which will affect every area of their life in a less than progressive way. Natural born mediums who have maintained this faculty from birth into adulthood are usually more grounded and settled, as this has always been their normal mode of perception and they do not see it as such a special and or magical condition. They usually just learn to control it and use it as they mature, as a natural course of development of sorts.

Now what are the signs of hysterical mediumship? Well a hysterical medium will usually be apt to see, hear and experience something where ever they go and with many people they interact with. They are sometimes very vocal about it, in the case of someone who feels the need for attention or who is being very disturbed by this state of distraction. Others are more quiet about it, but will exhibit symptoms similar to some mental illnesses that are well known today, resulting in night terrors, extreme flights of fancy and or a loss of touch with reality. Some of them will experience much fear and the perception that the things they experience are bad or out to hurt them. Others will get caught up in the idea that the gift endows them with some saintly responsibility to save the world and guide others at every turn. Nowadays with all the attention and pre-occupation with all things paranormal, hysterical mediumship is more prevalent ,as more people are dabbling with spirit seeking and mediums have come into the limelight with the coming of the New age movement. Parents who think they have a gifted child will encourage it sometimes too much and encourage or exploit that gift to the detriment of the child medium's normal development. Every gifted person needs to have some outlet for grounding and a rational understanding of their own abilities that is not colored by their own or others' obsession or pre-occupation with it. A hysterical medium is at risk to develop true mental or emotional illness, if they do not learn to ground and reel in their own imaginations and ingrained ideas about the world of spirit.

Many hysterical mediums especially the young folks wind up in psychiatric care because of their irrational behaviors that lead others to judge them as imbalanced mentally. Psychologists, as a rule do not treat hysterical mediumship, as such because the main stream medical community does not recognize this ability or the pitfalls that go with it sometimes. Instead they treat the person as if they are just mentally deranged or medicate them which can make mediumship even more intense, by dulling out normal shut off mechanisms with these drugs. A hysterical medium needs counseling to learn how to calm down their modes of perception and learn that not everything they perceive is the direct result of their gift, and that their minds and emotions play into it on a grand scale. You can not discount that the gift exists as when the person is truly gifted in this way, no drug or counseling can change that faculty. You have to help the person deal with it from a perspective that helps them to work through the problem but at the same time acknowledges the source, as something real and not necessarily negative or abnormal. At the same time you do not want to encourage the hyperactivity of their imagination and glorify the ability to the point where you discourage the person from the pursuit of normality. Believe it or not most spiritually gifted people tend to level off on their own and sometimes the condition of hysterical mediumship is actually contributed to by well meaning outsiders who are enamored by the person's gift ,feel threatened by it, or try to control or exploit it through imposed religious concepts, or control.

To wrap this up I just want to say that "Hysterical mediumship" is becoming very common and that people sometimes do not realize that they suffer from it or when someone they know suffers from it. Most people do not know a lot of mediums, to be able to discern what is a normal healthy medium and what is an off balance or imagined medium. This is something we all need to learn about and understand if we have a gifted person in our lives, are gifted ourselves, or work in the para field. Please keep in mind that with many haunt cases there may be people who are affected by the haunting and very upset by it, who then assume that they are mediums. These are false mediums, people who have watched too much TV or read too many books, or just want to have this ability. This is whole different topic which I will address in a future article. Just so there is no misunderstanding, this article is about true mediums who are just out of balance and perhaps over intoxicated by their gifts to the point where they have no real handle on them, and can not use them effectively because of it. With this as with all of my articles I am just trying to create an awareness of this condition, as it is very prevalent , very misunderstood, and goes unrecognized far too often.